Something Different This Way Comes
by nechoco kitty
Summary: A series of AR or alternate reality ficlets based on Miki Aihara's Honey Hunt manga.
1. set me free

**Disclaimer: **_ Honey Hunt_ and the characters in question belong to Miki Aihara as well as other copyright holders. I mean no disrespect, no matter how I may play with canon.

**Thank you:** to Aihara Miki, because her stories are addicting despite the misogynistic undertones. To my friends, because without your support and encouragement I wouldn't have been able to make is this far.

* * *

_23. walk this way_

_we have been set free _

**set me free**

_Shinsuke. And Mom. Together. Rutting on the couch like two animals in heat, like two _fucking_ teenagers._ Yura doesn't think that she has ever felt this betrayed before. Sure, her mom is a bitch, but that wasn't new, that wasn't personal. Not like this._ She knew I liked him and she didn't even care. _

She feels a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach when they turn to look at her; Yukari, her mother, with her smug look of self-satisfaction and Shinsuke's look of shame ._ Like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, _she thinks before dismissing the thought as unfair. Yukari Shiraki was a beautiful woman, every man's wet dream. Shinsuke would've been an idiot if he rejected her. Yura_ gets _it and maybe that's part of the reason why it hurts so goddamn much.

Something is cracking―really cracking this time. That something that kept her up and functioning is slowly starting to unravel, to break into a thousand or more irreparable little pieces and Yura can't do anything but passively watch from the sidelines of her own self as she walks away from her mother and the only person that she could ever truly count on and never would again.

"_It would be better if people like them just burned in hell." _

Her voice breaks when she speaks to the reporters in front of her house. Her voice breaks and she cries and she says the sort of things a teenage girl in her situation is expected to say―she disowns them publicly. Yura spits the words out with all the venom that had been building up inside of her and it feels _great_. For that one moment it almost doesn't matter that she's saying it on national television, that her life is falling apart at a dizzying pace. Everyone is looking at _her_, listening to _her_ and what she feels is now center stage.

Yura is still shaky when she walks away from the reporters, so it's a godsend when they're too dumbfounded to do a follow up question. Their confusion doesn't last for long, though, and Yura is relieved when the man with the glasses comes to take her away. Her very own knight in shining armor, wasn't that funny? She never really cared for fantasy, but at that moment anything felt possible. It is like the whole world is at her fingertips and at that moment she has never felt so complete.

Yura looks back at her old house from the car. She watches it grow ant-sized and wonders if a paparazzi managed to go inside and catch her mother in the act.

She hopes they do.

**A/N: **Hey there, this is SL with her longest fic to date! (Yeah, seriously.) This is only a one shot for now, but I hope to play with it a bit more. Reviews? Meh, the lack of 'em won't stop me from writing and furthering my craft, or I would have stopped ages ago! XD

Expect this to be revamped or something. And plot? What plot? (No, this doesn't mean I be writing smut. Just a lack of plottiness.)


	2. spin me right round

_38. Hard, but much truer_

**spin me right round**

Yukari Shiraki is a spin doctor of the best kind. Every story is a story to benefit from, to turn around and make _hers_. It is an enviable talent for any actor, and one that Yura hates with a passion. To the media, Yukari is "perfect"; the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect woman. It makes Yura _sick._ Her mother is nothing but a cold-hearted, narcissistic **bitch,** but the media _knows nothing._ Yukari Shiraki is perfection personified as far as everyone is concerned, and nothing—not even the public disowning that Yura declared on national television—could change that.

The realization stings, but it's the truth. Yukari Shiraki is just **that good.**  
_  
"I understand my daughter is going through a difficult time with the divorce and I forgive her, but_ **it hurts so much right now.** _I just wish my Yura-chan can find it in her heart to forgive me._"

Yura laughs bitterly at her TV-mother's words.

"What a fucking _liar," _she mutters. In her mind's eye she recalls the cool indifference with which her mother informs her of the divorce, how her long, manicured fingers callously brushes off Yura's worries like a piece of lint on her designer suit. The sting in Yura's heart as she realizes, not for the first time, how much Yukari Shiraki loves her (not a bit).

"Harsh." Nanase's voice is somewhere between soothing and neutral as he plops down beside her on the couch, holding two mugs of tea. "But understandable."

She makes a little noncommittal noise and takes the proffered mug, sighing happily as she takes in the warmth. "Thank you, Nanase-san."

He reaches over, ruffles her hair. "It's the least I can do for my Yura-pon."

Yura winces and laughs at the same time. _Don't treat me like a kid,_ she wants to say, but instead there's only, "Still, thank you. For everything."

He smiles, and there's something just under the surface of his expression, in his warm brown eyes, but they both glance away before it can be deciphered.

.

**ahn~** Well, this is a very old piece, like over a year kind of old. Damn thing refused to end, so I just put it in storage until I could hack at it.

Anyway, I adore Nanase to pieces, and I think that he's pretty much the only person who Yura can turn to for pure, "no-strings-attached" comfort, which is pretty much what this one-shot is all about. But, hey, if you want to read this with your shipper-goggles on, go right ahead! xD


End file.
